Saturday, July 04, 2015

Carlin once said that most of the world is a straight line,
so you have to tilt your vision just enough to see the craziness.

It’s true. We
live in a society that disparages smartness, thwarts individuality, isolates
eccentricity, discourages critical reasoning and minimizes existential thought.
And if we have any intention of making the world a better place, we have a
responsibility not just to think, but to protect our thinking. To take the
helmet of salvation, to use a biblical term, and defend ourselves against those
who try to shake our belief in self.

It’s a way of setting boundaries. Putting
a cap on the amount of feedback we expose ourselves to, lest we give people’s
opinions more weight than they deserve.

I’m reminded of when I used to send out
my manuscripts for peer review. In every instance, people’s comments on my work
would do nothing other than make me feel defensive and upset and disempowered. Slowly,
the excess of feedback started to bounce me around like a pinball. And by the
time I finished reading everybody’s comments, I had lost sight of my original
vision for the book. Because I wasn’t protecting my thinking.

And so, I made
the decision to simply remove that step from the writing process. I just
stopped listening to people. And I started writing what I wanted to write, the
way I wanted to write it, publishing it irrespective of people’s projected
insecurities and flaws. And I never looked back.

The point is, the brain has no
firewalls. By sticking ourselves out there, we are unprotected to the searing
headwind of others doubts. And there’s nothing to stop our minds from being
hijacked by adverse influences. Take measures to safeguard them.

LET ME ASK YA THIS...

How do you protect your thinking?

LET ME SUGGEST THIS...

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